Nearly 1,000 give selves up after riots, China says

Maureen Fan, Washington Post

Published
4:00 am PDT, Thursday, March 27, 2008

Nearly 1,000 people have surrendered to police in the wake of the riots and protests in Tibet and neighboring provinces, state media reports said Wednesday, as Chinese officials tried to demonstrate control of both the unrest and the story.

A small group of hand-picked journalists touched down in Lhasa on the first government-led tour since China closed the tightly restricted region to foreigners last week, but it was unclear how much freedom they will have to report.

Experts from the government-established China Tibetology Research Center echoed leaders in blaming the Dalai Lama for deliberately sparking the protests to separate Tibet from China and sabotage the Aug. 8-24 Beijing Olympics.

China has been treating the broad unrest and, as of Tuesday, the still-spreading protests as a law-and-order issue that mostly has been contained. But human rights groups and foreign leaders continue to pressure China to exercise restraint, open Tibetan lands to foreign observers and sit down for frank talks with the Dalai Lama. Some leaders even have raised the possibility of a boycott of the Opening Ceremonies of the Olympics.

The New China News Agency said 280 people turned themselves in to police in Lhasa, where largely peaceful, monk-led protests March 10 gave way to violent rioting, looting and arson by angry Tibetans on March 14.

Another 289 people surrendered in the Gannan Tibetan Autonomous area of southwest Gansu province, where protests spread, the China News Service and the Gansu Daily said. And 381 people in Aba county in northern Sichuan turned themselves in, the New China News Agency reported.

Police also published a most-wanted list of 53 people sought in connection with the riots. At least 22 people have died in the riots, according to the Chinese government; Tibetan rights groups say nearly 140 Tibetans have been killed in riots and protests throughout the region, including Tibetan areas of other provinces.

Lhagpa Phuntshogs, general director of the China Tibetology Research Center in Beijing, said the violence was instigated by a handful of Lhasa's 46,000 monks who were misled by the Dalai Lama, his political supporters and the Tibetan government in exile.

"Many religious figures in the monasteries and temples in Tibet also believe that the activities and violence violated religious disciplines, and (that) their actions should be condemned," he said.

But even though the Lhasa riots were "carefully premeditated and organized" by the Dalai Lama, he said, "so long as the Dalai Lama abandons his separatist position, stops all separatist activities and recognizes Tibet and Taiwan as part of China, the door for consultation and dialogue between him and the central government is always open."

Professor Lian Xiangmin, director of the center's Research Projects Office, responded to a question on whether China is afraid of the Dalai Lama by saying, "I do not think I said the Dalai is highly violent, and I also believe that so long as 1.3 billion Chinese people are united as one, they will fear no one."

In Bay Area: City officials say police will not restrict protests when the Olympic torch comes to San Francisco - but the torch route is not yet decided. B1